200 EARLY HISTORY OF CAPE MAT COUNTY. 



whom, be it said, are blessed with prosperity and happiness. Many 

 of her people are to be found in the other free States of the West. 

 Peter Fretwell, the first member from the county after the sur- 

 render, and the first on record that ever represented her, belonged 

 to Burlington. He was a Friend and a cotemporary of Samuel 

 Jennings, as the record of the monthly meeting there attests, and 

 came over in the ship Shield, in 1678,* with Mahlon Stacy, Thomas 

 Revel, and others. It is curious that he, a non-resident, should 

 have been selected to represent the county in the Assembly for a 

 period of twelve years ; yet such is the fact, and I cannot find that 

 Jacob Huling, who was a member in 1716, or Jeremiah Bass, from 

 1717 to 1723, ever resided permanently here. The balance of the 

 list of representatives were all legitimately Cape May men, and 

 taken in a body were the bone and sinew of the county. Of some 

 of those ancient worthies in the list we know but little, except that 

 they held important ofiices of trust and responsibility. Others 

 among them seemed to live more for posterity than themselves, by 

 inditing almost daily the passing events of the times, and they are 

 consequently better known and appreciated. Their writings at that 

 day might have seemed to possess but little attraction, yet they 

 have become interesting through age, and valuable as links in the 

 chain which connects our early history with the reminiscences and 

 associations of times more recent ; and to carry out this con- 

 nection, it will be the duty of some faithful chronicler to unite the 

 history of those times and the present, which is so rapidly giving 

 place to the succeeding generation, by a descriptive and truthful 

 account, more full and complete, as the data and material incident 

 to later times are more abundant and illustrative. The troubles, 

 perplexities, and trials the members of Assembly endured previous 

 to the Revolution, in visiting the seat of government at Amboy and 

 Burlington, to attend the public service, cannot in this age of rail- 

 roads and steam be appreciated or realized. A single illustration 



* Smith's New Jersey. 



